hink of the name Rakae Jamil and if you have kept up with Coke Studio in its early years you will immediately be transported to the second season of the mammoth show. In season 2, Rakae had joined his cousins Ali Noor and Ali Hamza – who form the core of Noori – and played sitar on a number of their songs that became the series’ big hitters, like ‘Saari Raat Jaga’.

Fast forward to 2022, Rakae Jamil is a teacher and has evolved into a forward-thinking musician with a solo identity as well as one with a non-traditional music group.

Rakae Jamil’s newest release is an electronic music mix of a song called ‘Je Jun’. The song’s origin story comes from Bengali folk singer Tun Tun Shah. It is, as described on the song’s YouTube page, an old “baul folk” recording that was first made, “for a conference on South Asian Archives held in Kathmandu, Nepal, which was organised by the University of Chicago. The original recording was provided by Bertie Kibreah.”

Looking back at Rakae Jamil’s history as a multicultural artist, the simple reason for him to do this song lies in his natural progression towards various aspects of music. You can’t find a flaw in ‘Je Jun’ by Rakae Jamil even if you tried.

Speaking to Instep, Rakae shares what the pull that led him to this creation was. “I’ve always wanted to make music where the sound palette is electronic,” he tells Instep, right after finishing a class. “I received this recording from a friend of mine with whom I performed at the university a couple of times in Chicago.”

As Rakae narrates, ‘Je Jun’ is an old Bengali folk song recording. In the recording, one can make out instruments like dholak and tabla.

“I chopped it up according to the parts I wanted. I made this whole soundscape and arrangement to it, which I thought made sense to me.”

Rakae further developed a sitar riff that is the hook of this electronic mix of ‘Je Jun’. “It was made several years ago and I wanted to release it right now because I am focusing on the production side of things these days and looking to explore that.

“[This is] A blend of one acoustic sound, a couple of organic sounds with electronic, digital sound palettes,” says Rakae.

To that end, the sitar nawaz has also done a version of the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s big hit, ‘Halka Halka Suroor’.

“In this case, I thought it was interesting because I liked the scale, which was in a certain raag that I thought would fit well with the song.”

The result of this effort is exactly what Rakae Jamil set out to create. It packs a wallop with a beautiful, haunting voice, with the song first landing in obscure electro-territory but as it goes forward, it quickly moves towards a gorgeous sitar riff, a calculated and nuanced electronic vibe but one that never sounds like two different songs have been put together in thoughtless fashion. ‘Je Jun’ by Rakae Jamil is what it was always meant to be. It’s also a reminder of how much can be done with folk music.

While ‘Je Jun’ comes across as a unique production, Rakae Jamil also confirmed to Instep that his music group, Mughal-e-Funk, is very much alive. Rakae is among the founding members of Mughal-e-Funk, a primarily instrumental supergroup whose music is an interpretation of the Mughal era and its music and literature.

The group made quite a splash when they collaborated with Meesha Shafi (and music video director Umar Riaz) for their version of ‘Sakal Ban’. Apart from Rakae, this super group consists of Kami Paul, Rufus Shahzad, and Farhan Ali. The group has released their debut album called Sultanat from which they also released a music video called ‘Akbar’. They also appeared as a group on Coke Studio 11 with the song ‘Aurangzeb’.

Speaking about the band or if it has bitten the dust, Rakae dismisses the idea and notes that while times are slow(er) for the band, it is still very much together with Rakae working on the mixes for the second album.